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Homages and dedications have often a veiled mystique: the relationship between the composer and somebody else; a story and emotional experience hidden in the music. Homages are created from the heart, and reach out and engage the heart of the listener. To whom they are dedicated is not always easy to fathom, but they can speak and bloom as though they were only written for oneself, creating a poetry and beauty which fills our heart.

Reviews

'The programming of this recital strikes me as well conceived and the playing is thoughtful' (MusicWeb International)» More

'Swiss guitarist Christoph Denoth explores musical homages for the classic guitar. The album includes works by Malats, Rodridgo, Villa-Lobos, de Falla, Turina and Llobet. Recitals of poetic beauty' (The Northern Echo)

Introduction

The theme of homage runs through this selection of music, drawn from more than four centuries. All of the composers were inspired by and dedicated to cultural, national, and personal ideals, which they expressed in a variety of ways in their music. The opening piece, Serenata Española (Spanish Serenade) by Catalan composer and pianist Joaquín Malats y Miarons (1872–1912) is a movement from his orchestral suite called Impresiones de España, which was dedicated to his dear friend D Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920). Malats was very much part of the cultural activities of his time. Pérez Galdós was a novelist and a leading figure in the Spanish Realism movement. Apart from his novels and plays, he wrote a series of 46 well-researched and popular historical novels called Episodios Nacionales covering all the important events in Spanish history. Malats, who studied piano at the conservatories of Barcelona and Paris, was a friend of Isaac Albéniz and performed his works—in fact, Albéniz enjoyed Malats’ interpretation of his Iberia suite, a work which Albéniz said took ‘españolismo and technical difficulty to the ultimate extreme’. Malats’ work was written in this same spirit. He made an arrangement for solo piano of the Serenata Española, and later Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909) transcribed it for the guitar.

During the 15th and 16th centuries in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, there appeared a guitar-like instrument called a vihuela. Its repertoire was produced by just a handful of composers: Luis de Milán, Enríquez de Valderrábano, Miguel de Fuenllana, Diego Pisador, Alonso Mudarra, Estevan Daça, and Luis de Narváez. The Canción del Emperador (Song of the Emperor) was a piece written in ‘double homage’ to both the emperor and Josquin. Luis de Narváez was the musician at the royal chapel, and Mille regrets by Josquin des Prez was known to be the favourite work of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. The two pieces, Canción del Emperador and Diferencias sobre ‘Guárdame las vacas’ come from Narváez’s Los seys libros del delphín, a remarkable collection of polyphonic music transcribed for the vihuela, with elaborate fantasias; the work includes the earliest known sets of variations. His Diferencias (Variations) were based on a popular song of the time, Guárdame las vacas (Watch over my cows).

The theme of popular songs and variations continues with the Variations on a Scottish theme ‘Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon’, Op 40, by Fernando Sor (1778–1839). The lyrics of Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon by Scottish poet Robert Burns were first published in 1792, when Burns was 33 years old. It has remained a popular song, which is strongly connected with Scottish spirit and sentiment. Sor dedicated the Variations to his student, Miss Mary Jane Burdett, who was already accomplished on the piano and was having guitar lessons with him in Paris.

Fernando Sor was a prolific Spanish composer and virtuosic guitarist with a strong love of opera and song; his early education was at the choir school of Montserrat monastery. Although his family background was not artistic but military, his father introduced him to the opera and guitar, both of which absorbed his interest for the rest of his life. Sor maintained his military career, alongside that of a performer and composer, until the Spanish overthrew the Revolutionary French Forces. He was forced to leave Spain forever in 1813 and, thereupon, lived in Paris and in London.

The combination of a Scottish rhythm with a Brazilian chôro would seem an unlikely combination, but the works of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959), like those of so many Latin American composers, were strongly influenced by the popular music of his country. The Schottish-Chôro by Villa-Lobos was written as a suite of five pieces, known as the Suite Popular Brasileira. From a young age, Villa-Lobos performed in the bohemian cafés of Rio de Janeiro, and during his teenage years he earned his living by playing cello for a light-opera company travelling throughout Brazil. This also brought him into close contact with Brazilian popular music.

He was fascinated by the music, myths, and rites of the Brazilian Indios, and his compositions reflect his deep study of this music. The five Preludes were each written in homage: Prelude No 1 (Homenagem ao sertanejo brasileiro) in homage to the Brazilian country dweller; Prelude No 2 (Homenagem ao Malandro Carioca) in homage to the rascal of Rio, the Malandro Carioca; Prelude No 3 (Homenagem a Bach) in homage to Bach; Prelude No 4 (Homenagem ao Indio Brasileiro) in homage to the Brazilian Indios; and Prelude No 5 (Homenagem ao Vida Social) in homage to social life: ‘to the fresh-faced young boys and girls who go to concerts and the theatre in Rio’.

Villa-Lobos’s aunt was an acknowledged interpreter of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, so it is not surprising that Bach was an equally strong influence on the composer. It was not until the age of twenty that Villa-Lobos enrolled in the National Institute of Music in Rio de Janeiro to take formal classes in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and composition, and he found it difficult to settle down to his studies, as he had already produced a great quantity of pieces. Villa-Lobos originally dedicated his Cinq Préludes, which were written in 1940, to Andrés Segovia. When they were published by Max Eschig in 1954, the dedication was changed to Mindinha, Villa-Lobos’s wife. Uruguayan guitarist Abel Carlevaro premièred Preludes Nos 3 and 4 on 11 November 1943.

Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) was one of Spain’s leading and most influential composers, and although his output was not large, many of his works are still regularly performed, such as El amor brujo, La vida breve and El sombrero de tres picos. The Homenaje is his only work for solo guitar. Beginning in a habanera rhythm, much admired by French composers, this Homenaje expresses the high regard in which Falla held Debussy’s Spanish-influenced repertoire, such as Iberia. Falla even includes a small quote from La soirée dans Grenade, the second movement of Debussy’s Estampes.

The Homenaje pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy was published in December 1920 in a special issue of the Paris La Revue musicale dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, with articles written by Ravel, Satie, Bartók, Stravinsky, and Falla. The work was premièred by Spanish guitarist Emilio Pujol at the Salle du Conservatoire in Paris on 2 December 1922, and was also performed by Miguel Llobet on concert tours through Europe and South America. Manuel de Falla later orchestrated the work and gave it the subtitle ‘Elegia de la guitarra’.

Although Spanish composer Joaquín Turina (1882–1949) was born in Seville, in the heart of Andalusia, writing for the guitar was not something that came easily to him. The Sevillana (Fantasía), Op 29, was his first work for the guitar and written at the request of Andrés Segovia. Segovia spoke of the process in a lecture which he gave many years later for the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid, saying, ‘He was initially reluctant to reply positively to my repeated requests. Turina couldn’t find sufficient information in any of the orchestration treatises to begin composing with a sure and steady hand for an instrument with such an intricate polyphonic technique as the guitar’. Finally Segovia put himself at the complete disposal of the composer, assisting him, bar by bar, in the composition process. The success of this co-operation can be seen in the dedication which Turina wrote on the manuscript: ‘Al maravilloso guitarrista Andrés Segovia con admiración y cariño’.

The sevillanas dance is associated with the annual Feria of Seville, where the gentry parade in extravagant costumes. The subtitle Fantasía is an indication that Turina has not followed the strict structure of the sevillanas dance form. Turina’s Sevillana does include rasgueados (strummed chords) at the beginning and the end of the piece; lyrical and rhythmic sections in the middle part of the piece bring out the harmonic and poetic flavour of the dance. The Sevillana was completed in mid-November 1923 and Andrés Segovia premièred it on 17 December that same year at the Sociedad de Cultura Musical in Madrid.

Spanish composer and pianist Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) was a child prodigy and extensively travelled in the company of his family in his youth. As many prominent Spanish composers before and after him had done, Isaac Albéniz spent many years living in Paris. However, his Mallorca 'Barcarola', Op 202, was written in London in 1890. His performances were very well received in Britain and, in 1890, he did an extensive concert tour there. The barcarole is usually associated with the soothing stroke of the Venetian gondoliers, or the rocking motion of lullabies; however, the barcarola of Albéniz’s Mallorca refers to a style of lament, particular to the island of Mallorca, which is sung by one grieving the loss of a fiancé who has died.

Although Albéniz did not write a single piece for the guitar, a great number of his works, originally composed for the piano, were taken up and transcribed by guitarists almost immediately after they were written, and they have remained an important part of the classical guitar repertoire ever since.

Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999) has become internationally known for his guitar concerto, the Concierto de Aranjuez (1939), which continues to be the most popular guitar concerto heard on the international concert platform today. He also wrote a number of excellent solo works for the instrument, including En los trigales, which was written for Spanish guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza and premièred by him in 1938. The title En los trigales—'in the wheat fields'—is very much connected to the landscape of Spain. Rodrigo later grouped this piece with three others, Bajando de la meseta, Entre olivares, and Junto al Generalife, under the title Por los campos de España (For the countryside of Spain), describing it as an ‘imaginary suite that describes the Spanish landscape’.

Spanish guitarist Miguel Llobet (1878–1938) arranged a dozen or so popular Catalan folksongs for the solo guitar. The choice of material was a reflection of the cultural movement which strove towards promoting the Catalan identity in the arts. At the end of the 19th century, choral societies were being established in Catalonia, with the aim of involving people of working-class origin. In fact, the headquarters of the Orfeó Català for choral singing and the diffusion of musical culture was located close to his home from 1891.

It is hard to imagine that a beautiful melody such as that of the Canço del lladre is used to tell the story of the life of a bandit or thief (lladre). The lyrics of the melancholic El testament d’Amelia tell the story of a young girl poisoned by her stepmother, who is in love with the girl’s husband. Llobet captured that sense of sorrow and weeping in his arrangement for the guitar.

Miguel Llobet studied the guitar with Francisco Tárrega, who was so pleased with his student that he dedicated his Preludio No 2 to him. Llobet performed solo recitals throughout Spain before moving to Paris in 1904, where he moved in the same circles as Isaac Albéniz and Ricardo Viñes. He gave concert tours in Europe, South America, and the US. It is only in recent years that the importance of Llobet’s work and influence is being fully appreciated, so it is fitting to end this homage guitar recording with Miguel Llobet, to whom the guitar world owes its gratitude.

Among the oldest and most timeless styles of musical expression are pieces that are dedicated to a person, a town, or a landscape. This setting to music of a homage stemming from a variety of emotions and imagination is often a composer’s message to the person to whom the work is dedicated. Sometimes it may even be a declaration of love. The forms a homage may take are as varied as the imagination and emotions of the composer, or of the person for whom it was written. Homages speak to us in a very direct way because, as a rule, their emotional and musical message and beauty are easy to understand. The content speaks to us, and tells us a musical story based on contrasts such as beauty, charm, imagination, wit, sadness, humour, memory, hope, longing, poetry, and premonition.